A Taste of Fall: Pumpkin Spiced Cookies

Why do I love fall? To start, I love the trail running. Nothing better than the smell of running through a forest, flying down a hill, and hearing the crinkle of leaves underneath my footsteps.

Oh yes, and leaves. They turn quite beautiful around this time of the year. 

And when all of those leaves are put together, we get this:

Or better yet, this:

After the apple picking and cider donut eating, we get the pumpkins.

And with pumpkins, we get.....

Pumpkin Spiced Cookies

Last year I fell in love with my pumpkin cookies, but I wanted something new this year. Something with chocolate. My search led me to a blog with fantastic looking pumpkin cookies. I warn you, mine didn't come anywhere close to as cute as these.

Cookies
Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon paprika

2 all purpose flour

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2. Cream the butter with an electric mixer. Add the sugar and mix until creamy and fluffy, then add the pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, turmeric, and paprika. Mix the ingredients until smooth. Finally, slowly add the cups of flour to the batter until the batter is firm.
3. Flour a smooth working surface, as well as your rolling pin. Roll the dough about 1/4 thick, and then cut with cookie cutters. If you don't have any (like me), the top of a wine glass works excellent!
4. Place onto parchment-covered baking sheet and bake 9-12 minutes. The edges should be lightly brown, but be careful not to burn the cookies. Cool on a wire cooking rack before frosting

Chocolate Filling

1 cup Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips

4 tablespoons milk

1. While the cookies are baking, add ingredients to a microwave bowl and cook them in the microwave for one minute on medium power. 
2. Remove the bowl from the microwave, stir, and then place back in the microwave for 30 seconds on medium power. Repeat this process until the mixture is smooth. Be careful not to burn the chocolate.

Frosting the Cookies

1. After the cookies and chocolate filling have cooled completely, place a large amount of filling on one cookie, then cover with a second. 

My recipe made about 20 cookies, but they were small. If you make larger cookies, be sure to bake them for slightly longer. 

Taste bud feedback: I loved them. As with most desserts, they were absolutely amazing fresh out of the oven with melted chocolate and warm cookie. They're definitely a cookie you'll want to heat up in the microwave a few seconds before eating the next day. The chocolate is very noticeable when they're warm, but the next day the spices took over. My co-workers loved them, and so did Tom.